


Faceted Diamond

by sunaddicted



Series: Riddlebird Week 2k18 [1]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Character Study, First Meetings, Future Fic, M/M, No Man's Land, Post-Canon, Riddlebird Week 2k18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-14 11:35:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14768835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunaddicted/pseuds/sunaddicted
Summary: [...]the city had wired his brain and his heart all wrong.





	Faceted Diamond

_Faceted Diamond_

Oswald barely recalled his first encounter with Edward Nygma; it was something he found quite hilarious, considering just how deeply the other man would affect his life - he just hadn't known back then: he'd seen only a nervous, jittery fool.

_Painfully ordinary in his oddity._

Oswald's only memories of that time were those of jumbled words said in a too rushed voice - eager, almost puppy-like in its excitement - wrapped up in thick waves of annoyance, everyday life in the GCPD a murmuring background: he'd had better things to do than listen to riddles and facts about penguins.

After all, he had just come back from the dead.

It would be only the first time of _many_ \- both metaphorically and physically speaking. Even if he had known, Oswald doubted that he would have gone back to live a long and dull life of anonymity in some boring suburb: he thrived on dysfunction, the city had wired his brain and his heart all wrong.

There wasn't another place for him to make a home out of.

_Nobody ever left Gotham._

He remembered better their second encounter - well, their _third_ : Oswald couldn't recollect anything at all about his fever-induced plea to be saved from a certain and unbearably slow death in the woods and, deep down, he didn't want to remember; he wasn't any longer the kind of man Fish could order around, he'd become a big player.  

The _only_ player.  

 _The Penguin._  

And so, to the surface only came fragments hazy with drugs of an uncomfortable bed and a flat doused in green light; of the scent of medical-grade soap and the softness of worn blankets; of big brown eyes looking down at him from behind the cleanest pair of glasses he'd ever seen.

Of an _edge_ he'd missed to detect in Edward Nygma that afternoon in the middle of the precinct.

Still, Oswald's heart had been clouded with grief - he'd _dismissed_ what he was seeing, the core of the man that months later would become the centre of his universe and make it implode on itself at the moment of its maximum expansion; he could remember reading something about that being the future written in the stars, that sometime the universe would stop growing to fold and close up like a wilting flower.  

Edward had destroyed him in a far less graceful and poetic way: a bullet, aimed just a little too low to shatter his ribcage and puncture his heart but Oswald didn't fool himself into thinking that Edward had had any other target in mind.  

Not after his words.

_I. Don't. Love. You._

The fourth time he'd met Edward, Oswald hadn't been himself: Strange had turned him into the weak and demented idiot he had never wanted to be; it must have been the only reason why his memories weren't soaked with resentment at the way Edward had closed the door in his face in a moment of need.

Maybe it was because he'd met his father soon after.

 _Maybe_.  

Or maybe he'd already been halfway in love with Edward without even noticing it - it wasn't something Oswald liked to think about, not in the light of what had happened _after_.

In any case, he couldn't trust his memories of the vibes that had come off of the other man: everything had been coloured with a pink and optimistic hue that had blinded him to the truth.

Then there had been the first visit to Arkham and Edward had been glorious, he'd burnt his way right through his retinas and seared his mark into his synapses: Oswald had been enthralled by the other's strength, the aura pouring off of him in thick waves.  

Edward had been _resplendent._

And Oswald hadn't been able to stay away from him, despite having tried to talk himself out of it; he could feel himself slipping, hurtling towards the precipice, but his muscles had refused to fight and he had let himself be swept away.

Oswald had wanted to be loved and it had clouded his judgement - it had made him careless where he usually was careful: giving his heart away had never been a conscious gesture.

One day he'd woken up and he'd realised it wasn't beating for himself alone any longer.  

That Edward was echoed in every beat.

But he hadn’t known the other man as deeply as he liked to think: Edward's personality was plastic, ever-changing - there always was a new side to unveil, a secret facet Oswald hadn't been privy to, multitudes living in the dark side of the soul.

Oswald loved every single one of them and he was punished for it and despite that, he still couldn't let go of him - he literally was holding onto his corpse, abandoned in Strange's cruel hands for the man to work his magic and bring Edward back to life. Oswald wondered about what kind of light would inhabit the other man's eyes: would he see hatred?

Confusion?

Gratitude?

_Love?_

Oswald snorted and shook his head to himself, hands smoothing down the lapels of his jacket, the movement followed by his eyes in the mirror; he felt foolish for dressing up like that, wrapping his body in finery and wealth as if an armour of fabric would protect him from heartbreak.  

First impressions were important, though, weren't they?

* * *

“Give him some time, the brain can be slow to restart”

Edward frowned - or well, he gave the command to his facial muscles but they felt so stiff that he wasn't sure the impulse had translated into the expression he'd wanted to appear on his face: he knew that voice, it made his marrow crawl with ants.

_Nothing good ever came out of Indian Hill._

That was- Edward didn't know what it was. An inner voice? A fleeting thought? An evanescent memory?

“Are you sure he's waking up today?”

There was someone else, looking down at him - Edward didn't like the feeling of being observed while he was unconscious, as if he wasn't anything more than organic material languishing and drying out on a Petri dish.  

Edward was sure he knew the second man too: his whole body had seemingly buzzed alive at those sharp words, brimming with annoyance and hope at the same time - an important man who wasn't the owner of his own time, but who had wanted to be there for him.  

For… for what, exactly?

Was he waking up from some kind of coma?

But what had-

_The knife._

Edward remembered a knife worming its way in his insides.

Well, something had definitely gone wrong somewhere in the past - how near or how far he couldn't tell yet, but Edward was sure that the knowledge was there for him to grasp, ready at his fingertips.  

Unlike another time, when the barrier had been too thick for him to break; Edward recalled having to slowly chip at it in order to free his old self from the grip of the ice that kept him a prisoner in his own mind.

He just had to wake up.  

Easier said than done.

“Are you sure you didn't damage him?”

He wasn't _broken_. If he had had enough strength to both control his facial expressions and his train of thought, Edward would have scowled: as Strange had said, his brain-

 _Strange_.  

Doctor Hugo Strange _,_ the man behind the mysterious Indian Hill - _the fabric of monsters._

The mere idea that the other man might have messed with him was nightmare-inducing, it was terrifying and Edward fought against the thick fog in his head to open his eyes and wake up: he needed to see the damage, to try and find a way to repair whatever modification had been done to his body.  

_To restore himself to sanity._

The light hurt when it pierced his pupils, but Edward ignored the pain and he looked up; he was expecting to see the ceiling but there was a pair of bright blue irises looking down upon him.  

He took in a stuttering breath, deep and trembling “Oswald”

“Hello, sleepy head” the other man smiled “Welcome back to the land of the living”


End file.
